Chapter 20 · Marks on the Iron Table

The radio laughed again, and the sound crawled right up my spine.

"Bianca, sweetheart. You still there?"

My needle was still in Lucian's skin. One more stitch and the wound would be closed. I didn't move.

He did. He sat up on the iron table, bare chest slick with sweat, and thumbed the safety off a pistol I hadn't seen him grab.

"Sit down," I hissed. "You'll tear it open."

"Quiet." His eyes never left the radio. "Let him talk."

Smoke slid under the steel door in gray ribbons. It tasted like burnt rubber. The fans overhead were dead, the air already thick and warm like a mouth.

"Uncle Silvio," I said. My voice came out too steady. I hated that. "Turn the fans back on."

"Oh, I will." He sounded happy. Fed. "Soon as you two do something for me."

Lucian's jaw flexed. "You're a dead man, Silvio."

"That's what your brother's killers kept saying about themselves. Right up until the water."

The room went cold in a way smoke couldn't explain.

Lucian didn't blink. But the pistol dipped a half inch, and his knuckles went white around it. I saw it.